Grow more food! Think there will be more shortages

[a_Vivaldi]

This is really interesting. I’ve added the Georgics to my reading list.

My impression is the first two sit pretty well with modern sensibilities. The first I think has a modern version in the noble savage cliché and similar tropes regarding Native Americans. The second is definitely still resonant. Though I wonder who nowadays might still be more influenced by Virgil and the like as opposed to say American Transcendentalism. Maybe Wendell Berry or even the Southern Agrarians?

Natural law is maybe getting a bit more alien to modern sensibilities. Technically, Catholics, some protestants, Classical Liberals, and a few others still maintain some notion of natural law, but I feel like it is trending towards obscure even within these groups. The average Catholic or old school Liberal off the street probably couldn’t explain just what natural law is.

The hostility of nature seems to have a pretty healthy literary or media tradition still going for it. Jack London is my favorite for that kind of stuff, and while I haven’t seen The Revenant, it sounds like Jack London-type stories are still alive and well in Hollywood.

That last one though. Man, that’s not something you see much these days.

[CRhode]

@a_Vivaldi

Did they attach the importance of the farmer to nature or the land, or were they taking aim at the moral failings brought on by material wealth in the city and pointing to those outside the city as examples of virtue?

The latter, I think. Convention → Morality → Virtue → Vir (Man) → Virtus (Virtue).

[CRhode]

@a_Vivaldi

People saved seeds back then because they were dirt poor, and because it was really hard to get anything other than what was available locally. Seed catalogs, and more recently online seed stores, completely obviated that.

Seed catalogs were a thing (in New England) as early as the beginning of the 19th century apparently:

• Paine, Laura. “Hands to Work, Hearts to God: The Story of the Shaker Seed Industry.” HortTechnology. Oct.—Dec. 1993. 375—82. 04 May 2024 <file:///tmp/mozilla_ccrhode0/horttech-article-p375.pdf>.

Obviously cheap transportation was a prerequisite. And I note the intertwining of religious fervor with agribusiness.

[fruitnut]

In my view if there were no food in the grocery stores, there are very few people prepared to feed themselves. Why, because if it got that bad everything else would break down also. There’d be no police, military, electricity, fuel, or anything else we now rely on for food, clothing, and comfort. It would be everyone for themselves. Maybe you’ve got a garden and chickens to feed yourself. But there’d be 99 other folks with no land, no skills, no seeds, and no place to find food but to take yours. Good luck with your little piece of self reliance. I’d guess that 95 to 99% in the US population won’t last past 1-2 years.

The good news is it’s very unlikely in anyone’s lifetime.

[Zone6]

Wow…that was '21 clarkinks. Things are a lot worse now.

[Zone6]

I’ve heard with no electricity there will be a 90% - 95% die off. I’m not good at gardening. I tried it for years, but gardening is not like fruit trees that can be left alone, more or less, once they are established. You have to be a slave to your garden unless you got a greenhouse, auto water and all that with clean soil that is not loaded with weed seeds and bugs. I pulled out the garden and put in more fruit trees.

I used to grow microgreens in the house for a couple of years. I had a big rack 6 feet wide and 6 feet tall loaded with trays. Lights were on from 6 AM until after midnight. Gave it up, too much hassle.

White sweet potato

For the last couple months, I’ve grown yam and white sweet potato greens indoors. They grow great just with window light. White sweet potato grows more vigorous than yams. I was just experimenting about getting greens in an emergency. My teeth are shot so I can’t eat them raw, I use them in a smoothy or chop up super fine with a santoku knife on a wood block to cook. Of course, in an emergency you need electric to run the blender or juicer. But I do have a manual wheat grass juicer. Regular potato greens are not edible…poisonous!

Here is how people lived without electricity back in the day.

Iconic Sodbusters Of The Prairie D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I don’t think as a country we can go back to that life. Sure, people could, a few anyway. But America would be taken over by other countries if it lived rustic like that. In the Great Depression the people of then, helped their neighbor. The people of now, will kill their neighbor to get their food and preps.

It is just how humans are…

[Zone6]

Covid was a good trial run for an emergency. It showed how fast things can go downhill. Really, it can go downhill instantly, but covid was still a good wakeup call. I’m from the 1950’s. I had never seen shortages like that in my lifetime. OK, if you live in a hurricane zone, you will shortages when one approaches. But not everyday Mayberry America.

I had tested some old radish and red clover sprouting seeds I had bought back in 2010. They were still in the original bags stored in the back of the fridge and the clover seeds were in the freezer for a few years. These 14-year old seeds still worked great! Only thing is, I can’t chew em…teeth are shot. But I can still get some nutrition using them in a smoothy. Just be aware, some of these sprouts are spicy!

When I lived in L.A., I used to like to go to Korea Town and buy soybean sprouts. Very substantial and works well in stir fry. Mung bean sprouts were the most common sprouts sold at Safeway, Hughes, Alpha Beta and Ralphs back in the day. But I can’t chew any of them.

I gave up making sprouts ages ago. I used to buy alfalfa, radish, broccoli, red clover sprouting seeds by the pound. They were all pretty cheap back then. Now they are crazy priced. Looks like sprouting seed prices have about tripled from 2010. In 2010 I paid $6.76 for 1 pound of radish sprout seeds. Red clover seeds were also cheap. I’d sprout seeds in canning jars with the sprout lids. Indoor sprouting is the easiest way to get some fresh greens, especially if you are an apartment dweller.

I used to buy lots of store-bought sprouts if I didn’t want to bother making sprouts, but no more in the Rustbelt. They could not sell them without bacteria it seems, so markets quit selling them. Sunflower greens are also nice for home sprouting for sandwiches. Or grow wheatgrass for juice. (I never liked wheat grass juice.)

[Shout-rattans]

@Zone6

You should look into growing hazelnuts and asparagus. I find they are a lot more like growing fruit trees than vegetables once established.

[steveb4]

rhubarb also. grows on neglect. loves my shitty clay/ rocky soil.

[clarkinks]

Several years later it looks like when i told my friends and family we woild have 4 -5 rough years in this area that i predicted it exactly as it went for this area. Our droughts tend to last 5 years. I think we should all spend some time in prayer thankful for having passed through these very difficult times. Im not suggesting we will not lose time from our lives. Know that no matter what we do there are forces greater than us in motion. Those growing their own food are always better off. Money has proven to still just be a promisary note rather than having a value. Crypto is similarly unbacked . We call currency unbacked by assets fiot. Fruit and vegetables are on the other hand only going up every day. Digital dollars and cash are both forms of fiot. More can be made without assets backing them. Since that is the case all these currencies have very limited use to me. Fruits and vegetables are like red meat, milk , eggs, cheese, and fish etc. to me. These things like land are true assets. What im saying is not fact it is an opinion.

[analog]

From Kroger to walmart to Meijers to Dollar General…everything from tissue, loaf bread, bottled water, tools, motor oil, corn meal…have had many many feet of bare empty shelves. One DG store had no bread of any kind.

Old post, but I remember those daze !! I have never owned a TV, and was so busy and overworked I didn’t know anything about the “deadly virus”, after all nobody was sick, much less dying … Anyway, I finally finished a major project at home and could finally make my own bread again … went to the supermarket to buy (organic) bread flour … and the flour shelves were EMPTY except for organic 100% whole wheat flour !! WTF !!! So, the bread would be heavy, no big, plenty of yeast so bought some packs of organic yeast. …

Learned about the “deadly virus” after I went to buy TP and there was a cop at the TP isle - (Twilight Zone theme). Of course since nobody was sick or dying, and liquor stores were “essential” so many people were staying home from work and partying instead … for a few weeks I felt like the world had turned into some sort of stupid crazy Science Fiction Catastrophe.

Anyway, after I learned from people who owned TVs what was “going on” I’ll NEVER forget my astonishment at all those idiots who bought so much flour to empty the shelves, but didn’t know enough to also buy yeast. (A few weeks later all the yeast was gone too.) Equally as hilarious was the imbeciles that hoarded TP for a: Respiratory Infection. Nevertheless, to this day I know those imbeciles are “out there” so I continue to overstock on bread flour, yeast, and TP.

And, even tho I live in a mobile home without a spec of dirt to grow anything, I now have a container garden and am learning how to grow ANYTHING, because there ARE shortages of healthy, nutritious, flavorful food. Thanks clarkinks, hope you are doing well, I don’t eat processed food so no idea about what prices are now for an industrial lunch, but “Grow more food” is right!!

[Olpea]

I’d sort of lost track of this thread for a while. Interesting to read well read people discussing food shortages and the role of agriculture in everyday lives in this thread.

@a_Vivaldi

there has never been a single famine in a developed country that was not caused by war, Communism, or genocidal policies. The last famine in the US or England occurred over 400 years ago.

Really appreciate your comments on this thread. Agree that most modern famines fit that description, but not all.

I don’t think the Irish potato famine would completely fit that description. Certainly Ireland was exporting some grain during that famine, but that only made it worse. It would have still been a substantial famine on it’s own.

The great Bengal famine of 1770 was again exacerbated by poor government policy, but the original cause was smallpox and crop failure.

There are other similar examples within the last 400 years. I think one thing we can learn is that in times of dire shortages, governments (or people outside government, but control the means of food production) enact policies which mulitply the dire effects of the shortage. This is true for Communist countries, as well Monarchies.

I don’t have an example of a modern day famine in a Democracy, which is not due to war, but I think history still teaches Democracies also install poor policy when there are food shortages. In WWII, we had price controls on meat in the U.S. I think most historians would agree that policy increased shortages, rather than rectify them.

I think @Zone6 had a very good point that Covid was a trial run for an emergency. I’ve mentioned before, about 1% of the U.S. population died from Covid. Although it’s traumatic to lose a loved one. Statistically speaking, that number is insignificant as far as historical pandemics go.

I could easily imagine a pandemic which killed 10% of the population or more. What I can’t imagine is the extent of pandemonium from an event like that. I doubt even “essential” workers would go to work, if they had to risk their lives to do so.

Likewise, if there was a severe EMP event (even if caused by natural solar activity) I can’t imagine how our nation would function without electricity.

I think our modern times have broken the historical mold. What I mean by is that because we are so interdependent on electricity, computers, and the specialization of work, I would not expect the kind of resiliency to a truly catastrophic event that has been shown in the past. Likewise, there is no historical precedent for the type of easy mass destruction capable from nuclear weapons (with essentially a push of a button). Because of these things, I just don’t think we can look to history to see a model, because what we have now is outside humankind’s historical experience.

I think @fruitnut makes a good point that if circumstances where at a famine level, people would steal any food available anyway. That could/probably would happen if there was a disaster on a nuclear level.

But, in a democracy, there is a good chance that in all but the worst famine scenarios, there would probably be rationing (like we did during WWII) so that some food would be available.

I think in that case, people who grow more of their own food fare better, generally. The government could take your own personal food stores (as the Soviet Union did during the Ukrainian famine of 1921, which caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians). But that falls under one of the worst case scenarios.

Even then, folks who grow some of their own food are probably better off than not growing any of their own food.

[Ged]

I would guess that most people, including me, who grow anything seriously are doing it to satisfy a particular, deeply compelling need as a way to live in this world. It is for me a long, and often enough fruitful, engagement with natural forces and all the varieties of life that one will meet. To try to put this into an economic framework is an insulting reminder of how demoralizing our value system has become. How much is true love worth?

As for the aspect of being prepared for a collapse of civilization, it is impossible to say whether or not it could make a difference. Human history, combined with the incredible array of perilous new threats we have introduced, argues for dramatic change being inevitable. The ability for denial is the one trait that truly separates us from other species which are obligated to take the world as it comes.